{"product_id":"the-erotic-phenomenon-9780226505374","title":"The Erotic Phenomenon","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhile humanists have pondered the subject of love to the point of obsessiveness, philosophers have steadfastly ignored it. One might wonder whether the discipline of philosophy even recognizes love. The word \u003ci\u003ephilosophy\u003c\/i\u003e means \"love of wisdom,\" but the absence of love from philosophical discourse is curiously glaring. So where did the love go? In \u003ci\u003eThe Erotic Phenomenon, \u003c\/i\u003e Jean-Luc Marion asks this fundamental question of philosophy, while reviving inquiry into the concept of love itself.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMarion begins his profound and personal book with a critique of Descartes' equation of the ego's ability to doubt with the certainty that one exists-\"I think, therefore I am\"-arguing that this is worse than vain. We encounter being, he says, when we first experience love: I am loved, therefore I am; and this love is the reason I care whether I exist or not. This philosophical base allows Marion to probe several manifestations of love and its variations, including carnal excitement, self-hate, lying and perversion, fidelity, the generation of children, and the love of God. Throughout, Marion stresses that all erotic phenomena, including sentimentality, pornography, and even boasts about one's sexual conquests, stem not from the ego as popularly understood but instead from love.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA thoroughly enlightening and captivating philosophical investigation of a strangely neglected subject, \u003ci\u003eThe Erotic Phenomenon\u003c\/i\u003e is certain to initiate feverish new dialogue about the philosophical meanings of that most desirable and mysterious of all concepts-love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJean-Luc Marion \u003c\/b\u003eis professor of philosophy at the University of Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV, and the John Nuveen Distinguished Professor in the Divinity School and professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, \u003ci\u003eOn Descartes' Metaphysical Prism, \u003c\/i\u003e also published by the University of Chicago Press. \u003cb\u003eStephen E. Lewis\u003c\/b\u003e is assistant professor of English at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is the translator of Jean-Luc Marion's \u003ci\u003eProlegomena to Charity\u003c\/i\u003e and Jean-Louis Chrétien's \u003ci\u003eHand to Hand: Listening to the Work of Art\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50318493417746,"sku":"9780226505374","price":31.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a7a15ef4-ea95-4df4-a28c-a7416ad8511e.jpg?v=1727556164","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-erotic-phenomenon-9780226505374","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}